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Contents

Title

End of the World Airfield

Heading North

‘Couver Blues

I Had Ears

Girl on the seashore

The Heart of the World

Head From Mata Hari

The Viking’s Mother

Tomorrow is Forever

Ready or Not

This Cockeyed World

Lost Channel Road

Strong Arm

Young at Heart

Mute and Staring

You and Your Stuff

Jim the Drifter

Crypto-zoology

The Writerly Life

Crossroads

Freemantle

The Juras

Knife Fighter

Archie Marries Veronica

Tucumcari Roadhouse

List of Contributors

The Lady on Radio Road

A Hundred Acres and Some Kind of Fool

Strip Bar Haiku

Funny Old Memory

Wooden Indians

Camilo’s Bitch

And Let the Games End

Early Music

Even-Toed Ungulates

Bus Ride

One Gaunt White man

Where to, Zoe?

Our First Night at the Buchan

Big Nicky

Greenberg’s Drugstore

Another Round

Runagate Again

Tiger Man

Afternoon of the Blind Man

Guardalavaca Night

Forests

About Jim Christy’s Previous ColleCtions

End of the World Airfield

Seven planes, all sizes, spread

Over the tarmac after

The storm, like birds

On a white cashmere overcoat.

Undercarriages yellow

Or red, like spoonbills, white-

Tailed kites and ivory gulls.

There’s a snowy owl and a common

Tern. One woodcock come out

Of a wood of glass trees. The closest,

Like a pelican, must be

A cargo plane. It’s so quiet

You could hear a parachute

Open. Pilots all gone.

Mechanics vanished. Attendants

Wheeled away long ago.

There’s no one in the tower.

I’m alone between

Arrivals and Departures,

Next to the coffee machine. It might

Be the end of the world. I

Hear it tell me angels

Have made snow angels

On the runway.

Heading North

I’m headed for Northern Ontario. Nobody’ll

Think to look for me there. They’ll check

The old familiar southern places they think

My heart still embraces but where I usually

Just got run out of town, or dropped

At the outskirts out beyond the empty multi-

Plex and the last nail salon with an: “And don’t come back.”

Atta wa pis kat not Sarawak.

No one’ll recognize me under all those

Clothes, I’ll be just another Yo-ne-gis

With an icicle hanging from his nose.

My lips will look like a frozen river

Reflecting the grey blue sky.

Things have gotten too hot

In Furnace Falls and I just

Get the blues in Mississippi Station.

I remember the time in Ompah,

Outside the general store when the guitar

Fell on my head and woke me up. I’ll

Pass through Tichbourne and claim

To be someone else. You’re up there

Somewhere, I know.

I’ll find you and take you to Maskara,

Buy you a diamond from DeBeers after

You paint your big brown eyes. I want

To see how you look lying

On a Bear Skin Lake. I’m older

Than you but eager and I’ll

Prove it in Summer Beaver.

Ours will be a Marathon love, we’ll

Write our names on the Chalk River

And wake up Ati ko kan pledging Our troth with Caribou bone beats

On mastodon tusks.

Webequie

Mosonee

Moose Factory

Let’s visit the birds

On Akimiski

We’ll ride sweet coltsfeet

Along the ice roads, be rash,

Make love behind the leather leaf.

You’ll whisper:

WuhnumminWuhnummin

And tenderly I will sigh:

Kitchenuh may koosib

How will that sound at Ear Falls?

Nearby’s the Long Legged River

They named after you. Yes,

It calls to me north of Kaba baka.

We’ll make camp on the shores of

The big water, you’ll say you’re

Rescuing the name from an old

English captain, call it after me:

Jim Bay. Let’s take the dogs

To Fort Albany, get blankets for

Our antlers. We’ll grow old in a lodge

Of skins, paint symbols on the hides:

The sun, the moon, the moose and

Wolverine, animal tracks, tract houses

Of the south. The fires

In our hearts will sketch

Cartoon puffs of smoke

In Northern air. Your giggles

Make the weasel nervous. You’ll

Cry ‘Pluck, cut, gut’ at the snow

Goose. All your stories start:

“This was in the days of Bright

Nose.” I especially liked the one

About the cannibal rabbit. One

Night we saw Witikos rise up

Out of the waters, only to be

Defeated by our happiness. We

Will stay there content until you put

The Silver Dollars on my eyes

And send me out in the canoe

Alone, drifting toward the Pole.

‘Couver Blues

I’m gonna leave this dreary old ‘Couv

Go home,

Pack my grip

And get on the move

Take the passenger train

Far away from all this rain

I’m after bright skies

Want to have to shield my eyes

I’ll ride that Hound

Southern bound

Feel the sand in my shoes

Lose these ‘Couver blues

Maybe I’ll go to Yucatan

Get a sun tan, won’t need no Soleil de Bain

Drink Margaritas with the senoritas

But who am I jiving?

You won’t find me at some beach bar

My loonies don’t stretch that far

I’d go to FLA

But I wouldn’t have the money to stay

Guess I best just head east a ways

Cause I got these ‘Couver blues

I could jump in my old Cadillac

Cross the country all the way to Shediac

But the weather’s even worse there

And I don’t need no Brunswick Blues

I suppose I could try Osoyoos

Breathe some of that dry air

But I don’t really like

The kind of people they got there

Maybe go to Alberta

Where I hear a man’s free

Under those wide blue skies

At least til they figure how to privatize

I had something happening once

In Moose Hat or was it Medicine Jaw

Least I did until she called the law

And I had to scram

Down to the Badlands

Those kind of memories just make me cry

And I want to keep it dry

I already got the ‘Couver Blues

Think I’ll cross on into Saskatchewan

I could go to Porcupine Plains

But the women are homely

And the men folk kind of prickly

There’s always Weyburn

(Like hell there is)

I’ve been aiming at Success for years

But they always stop me at the outskirts

Down the road a piece is Oxbow

Where the weather’s never inclement

But if I went there I’d just have an incident

I see Old Wives up ahead

But I don’t want any of that

Maybe Manitoba’s the place for me

Far from all these evergreen trees

Got to get away ‘cause I got

These rainy, drizzly, dreary ‘Couver Blues

Why not go to Tolstoi

Give away all my possessions

But I’d just get rolled

By Anna Karenina

There’s Seven Sisters

And I knew them all but

That’s another story

Man, I don’t know where I’m gonna go

I got these dripping, mouldy, sniffing

Showers-in-the-morning-increasing-to-rain-

In-the-evening-heav y-at-times,-expect-

Thunder-storms-at-night-with-no-let-up-in-sight

‘Couver Blues

But, wait!

Look out the window

Is that the sun

Peeking through?

Yes, it is. And here it comes.

Hey, now!

Everything looks fine

Think I better

Stay right here.

Lose these

‘Couver Blues